Covidistan Annals XVI: Government Lies (surprise), Odd Numbers, Lunacy from Inside Vienna General Hospital

Come for public health-related mandates, stay locked up in the insane asylum formerly known as Austria, and people are forced to so for political reasons, as revealed by recent changes

Some more things about Covidistan that caught my eye over the past couple of days that you might be interested in.

Government by Madness

Hardly a surprising notion, isn’t it? Still, let’s go back a few days and look at what Der Standard had to say on Sunday, i.e., one day after the Committee of Public Safety announced, unexpectedly, that ‘the unclean’ may now legally peruse the public sphere that their taxes were financing, too.

Lies, Damn, Lies, and Official Numbers (also lies)

Writing on Sunday morning, Matthias Balmetzhofer claims, without offering any evidence, that ‘on week before the vaccination mandate enters into force, only 17% unvaccinated remain’ (my emphasis).

Yet, in the past two weeks alone, c. 85,000 adults have received the first dose, according to data the [Austrian Press Agency, APA] has seen that originated in the Health Ministry. Thus, 83% of those over 18 have received at least one dose, and 80% are fully vaccinated.

The second paragraph tells the reader about the upper chamber that is poised to ratify the vaccination mandate later this week. Once this is done—the régime has a majority in this chamber, too, which possesses only of dilatory veto powers anyways (if you’d like, I’ll write some more about the Austrian Constitution one day, please let me know)—the president will sign the act, which then must be published, all of which are formalities.

Still, I would point out that these are unsubstantiated claims that could be checked quite easily. Mr. Balmetzhofer didn’t do that, so shall we do some ‘fact-checking’ about this?

So, first I went to Ourworldindata.com and looked at their visualisation, which we all know to be based on ‘official government data’. As of 28 Jan. 2022, their data says this:

But, epimetheus, you might wish to check directly with the Covidistan government, lest the OWID cut-off point (28 Jan. 2022) is two days before Health Minister Mückstein made that statement.

True, so I give you the data that Mückstein’s government ministry is putting on its website on 1 Feb. 2022 (around 6:50 a.m., local time):

As of 30 Jan. 2022 [yes, this is the real deal /sarcasm]…72.52% of the entire resident population and 76.23% of those eligible have a Covid Passport…75.57% of the entire resident population and 79.43 of those eligible have received at least one dose.

So, as I see it, there are four options (all of which can be true at the same time, though):

1. Mr. Mückstein has different data than those that the Health Ministry puts up.

2. The Health Ministry’s website isn’t up-to-date.

3. Mr. Balmetzhofer is innumerate, i.e., the mathematical equivalent of illiteracy.

4. Mr. Mückstein was lying through his teeth.

Be that as it may, my guess is that all of the above is true, perhaps not in equal parts, and the most interesting question to ponder is, of course, why Mr. Mückstein and the media are engaged in ‘spreading disinformation’.

Or, if you’re done with being ‘nice’ to (unelected*) public officials, such as Mr. Mückstein, you may also call them: LIARS, which is, of course, #UNACCEPTABLE for public servants.

Sidenote: as to me calling out Mr. Mückstein ‘unelected’, well, he’s been tapped as Health Minister after the person who occupied that office, one former state minister by the name of Rudolf Anschober, a Green party hack who, by the way, was a high school teacher before he became a politician, no less than Health Minister during the Covid scam. Talk about qualifications.

Upon Anschober’s resignation last autumn, Mückstein was approached by the Green party leadership to fill the position of Health Minister. Now, one might argue that Mückstein, who was practicing medicine as a physician in Vienna, was at least a trained medical doctor, but that alone, Alas, given his track record in office, doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Also, keep in mind that Mückstein was the president’s private physician (and that president himself is a long-time Green party hack, too), which tells you a lot about (party) ‘loyalty’ trumping characteristics that should, ideally, guide public servants, such as, say, integrity, competence, and honesty.

So, how did the régime fare after announcing, somewhat unexpectedly, those lifting of some of the mandates?

The World According to Der Standard (I hope they’re drinking all day)

Covidistan’s de facto state media outlet Der Standard has had a nice, if perhaps unintentional in its shameless toeing of the Green party-line, piece out on Sunday. Written by Gerald John and Steffen Arora, the ‘article’ holds that (all emphases mine):

The West is triumphant. For days, the state governors [Landeshauptleute] whose states are dependent on winter tourism had lobbied the federal government to rescind some mandates ahead of the crucial week recess. Yet, Health Minister Mückstein (Greens) appeared not to budge—until the government called for an unannounced press briefing on Saturday.

Now, on short notice, some mandates are going away. First of all, the government extends the curfew, long a matter of complaints by the restaurant industry: on the day Viennese skiing tourists may travel west, on 5 Feb., restaurants may keep open until midnight (instead of closing at 10 p.m.).

Less than 24 hours earlier, on Friday, Mückstein actually defended the 10 p.m. curfew on national TV as ‘a very effective measure’ that would result in a reduction of contacts of 10-15%. Citing the expected Omicron peak around 7-9 Feb., Mückstein said changes may come, according to the Standard piece, ‘if modelling after that date indicates it’.

John and Arora are flabbergasted, asking:

Did the Business Community push Chancellor Nehammer and Minister Mückstein into a rushed decision that isn’t grounded in empirical evidence?

Of course, the Committee of Public Safety claims to have done their homework, but the civil-military advisory board didn’t expect any system overload in hospitals. Still, the advisory board’s working group on these matters is also referenced. They are also most noteworthy for agreeing to disagree with what they call ‘a political decision’ to alter the curfew and—more importantly—the prospective end of the 2G rule (i.e., only those who provide proof of either vaccination or recovery) come 19 Feb. 2022, which Herwig Kollaritsch, MD, associate professor of prophylaxis and tropical medicine at the Medical University of Vienna (bio here), objected to.

Kollaritsch was seconded by Gerald Gartlehner, MPH and head of the department of evidence-based medicine and evaluation at the University for Continuing Education Krems (bio here). Even though he wasn’t included in the deliberations, Gartlehner is quoted as follows:

The winter break holiday season took precedence over epidemiological caution.

Der Standard quotes Gartlehner (indirectly), who accused the régime of risking ‘hospital capacitiy’ due to the much-higher infection rates associated with Omicron.

Still, the high degree of politicisation—and, keep in mind that I maintained for months now that ‘Covid’ is, fundamentally, a political issue, and not a public health issue—can clearly be seen in the reluctance of opposition-led states in these matters. Here, esp. the Social Democratic state of Vienna is crucial, in particular for the Vienna state government has long maintained much harsher mandates than the federal government required. Thus, it comes as no surprise that Covidistan’s Social Democrats (in name only) use the régime’s decision to play party politics.

On the other side of the political continuum, the state governor of the Tyrol, ÖVP politician Günther Platter called out Mückstein’s decision to reduce the validity of the Covid Passport ‘incomprehensible’. Platter’s main concern, however, Der Standard maintains in closing, is similarly unrelated to public health:

It is feared that tourists from, say, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium are threatened with exclusion from fun in the snow [Skiurlaubsvergnügen].

Sidenote: Covidistan used to be partitioned in a rather bipartisan way, with the main differentiation being states ruled by either the conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) or the socialist-turned-Social Democratic Party (SPÖ). Historically, the western states (Vorarlberg, the Tyrol, Salzburg) and Lower Austria are the heartlands of the ÖVP while states with large working-class population centres (Vienna, Upper Austria, Styria) were ruled by the SPÖ. Over the course of the 1980s, this quasi-equilibrium began to break down, with the temporary rise of the Freedom Party (FPÖ) in the south (Carinthia) and ever more-shifting voting patterns. These days, Vienna, Carinthia, and the Burgenland are ruled by the SPÖ and the other six states are ruled by the ÖVP, although almost nowhere either party can rule without a smaller coalition partner.

Let’s briefly return to how state media ORF is commenting on the end of the ‘lockdown for the unvaccinated’ (my emphases):

The lockdown for the unvaccinated is over. As of today [31 Jan.], people who have elected to forego vaccination may again venture outside freely without fear of punishment.

In practice, the effects are going to be negligible, as the 2G rule continues to apply in large parts of public life. For example, unvaccinated people are still not allowed to visit events, pubs and shops that do not cater to their everyday needs. Further relaxation of mandates is to take place gradually in February.

What people without vaccination are now allowed to do again is to go outdoors without a valid reason and to visit friends. Previously, unvaccinated people were only allowed to go outside for certain purposes, such as going to work, buying food or medicine, exercising or going for a walk.

My take on this is obvious: #UNACCEPTABLE.

From Inside the Vienna General Hospital

Day by day, people—vaccinated and unvaccinated alike—are waking up, gradually realising that the arbitrary and outright tyrannical imposition of mandates by the putschists is infringing on way too many parts of life.

Take, say, the following, which I heard from a trusted source inside the HR bowels of Vienna General Hospital: due to the absolutely insane quarantine rules mandated by executive decree by—Mückstein—everyone who is considered ‘K1’, i.e., in direct personal contact with someone who tested positive for Sars-Cov-2, must go into quarantine for ten days.

How to get out of quarantine, you may ask? Well, if in quarantine, one could take a (rt-PCR) test on day 5 and, if that test would turn out ‘negative’, you’d be free.

This applies as well to healthcare personnel who, at Vienna General Hospital, yet, according to my trustworthy contact (whom I shall not name, for the obvious reasons), healthcare personnel overwhelmingly elects not to take that test on day 5, and instead remain ‘in quarantine’ for the full ten days.

Now, if that behaviour was, say, part of a coordinated effort to protest the mandates (which it is not), that would be something to agree with. But, according to the same source, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to fill shift rosters due to healthcare personnel electing to add some 5 more days of ‘vacation’ (my contact’s word, not mine) instead of going to work.

One last brief word about the Covid-related pressure on the Vienna General Hospital: there are virtually no Covid patients, but to the deplorable activities of the healthcare personnel, ward after ward has to be (temporarily) closed, which will cause an avalanche of serious consequences for everyone else, in particular cancer patients who will be denied treatment, as well as everyone else.

It is well past time to rescind these insane, stupid, and outright absurd mandates.

Also, let’s remember who’s responsible: the Vienna State Secretary of Health is Peter Hacker, a long-time SPÖ apparatchik and party hack, who is working tirelessly to serve as Mückstein’s willing executioner.

The last word in this piece is dedicated to Hacker’s CV (see here): he’s a high school graduate who has been in charge of the Vienna State bureaucracy for Health, Social Services, and Sports since 2018.

Add that name to the list of shame.

Remember them and, in time, put them on trial.